A pause. Silence. That textured, piney scent of wood up in flames, filtering into my nose and burning the top of my nostrils with the heat of disgrace and no-going-back.

Shouts. Fast breath. Pounding of feet. A house collapsing. My heart collapsing.

Black.

“You’re safe now,” a whisper.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“CAMERON!”

I blinked, shocked. Mrs. Peterson stood at the front of the classroom, tapping her ruler against her hand, her upper lip curled in annoyance. “I don’t know where you’ve been, but it’s clearly not in my class. If you’re really that uninterested, the door’s right there,” she spoke coldly, pointing a knotted, wrinkled finger towards the freshly painted door of my honors history class.

“I’m…sorry,” my voice was quiet, nearly unintelligible. “I’m um, paying attention.”

My ears were growing hot. The silence around me was nearly unbearable and I felt my classmates’ embarrassment like a cold hand running its fingertips down my back. Mrs. Peterson scowled, but having released whatever Menopausal angst she felt, turned back to the board, “As I was saying, in 1492…”

Her voice began to fade. It’s been three years but it could have been yesterday.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

A tear slid coolly down my jaw, red and enflamed from the repeated strikes of Nash’s rough, unfeeling hand. I sat curled in the corner of the cell with the other girls, most of them knocked out from the Molly they brought us this morning. I reached over to touch my fingers to Claire’s neck, make sure she was still breathing. Heart beat. Sweat…They kept the temperature up high so they didn’t have to spend a lot of money using AC to fight the Florida heat. Didn’t affect me though - I was always still so damn cold.

Sighing, I slumped back against the cold cement, rough and scratchy from years unused. How the fuck did I get here? Back then, I used to ask that same question every day.

It was one day. One mistake. One moment on my phone without looking where I was going. One dark evening on my way to the car in the Publix parking lot. The car came fast, the chloroform had me knocked out in seconds. But it was dark, and I should have known. Long nights without clients, that’s all I could think. My brain was like a broken record - a single thought replayed in my mind - should have known. But didn’t. And now I’m here.

A harsh voice broke my reverie, the screech of cell doors opening sending a chill down my spine. “Julia!” He called out, my heart thumping painfully as I shut my eyes in guilty relief. “Julia, girl, get your ass up, he asked for you.” Must have been a regular. Probably Ham or Dylan - they worked for a nearby truck company, dropped by often.

I was so damn tired. Maybe I took Molly without knowing it. Still leaning against the wall, I closed my eyes, slowly drifting into sleep…

My heart was singing, mimicking the jingle and chime of nature waking up around me. A warm breeze carried the coos of mourning doves through the air, the sound catching in trees that bounced happily above my head.

“Cameron,” my sister’s voice called out to me across the field, “let’s play…”

I was floating, the grass tickling at my bare feet as I pranced toward her, pretending to be a horse just to make her laugh. I could see my house growing closer in the distance and I grinned quietly to myself, silently exhilarated at the thought of the freshly made pasta Nona would call us to eat sometime in the next hour.

“Cameronnn,” her voice floated toward me, whiny but playful. I bent down, thrusting out my arms, a grin stretching wide across my face. A mourning dove flapped its wings above us, passing over head with one longing, “cooooo.” Sandra giggled, then ran right for my open arms. She leaped -

- I woke up in a sweat. Someone was wrenching me off my feet, my legs scraping across the bare cement.

“They’re moving us,” a sharp whisper. Claire, now awake, peers at me franticly, wide-eyed. A chill runs down my spine but I do everything I can to control my expression. I try not to think about what happened last time we were moved, two years and seven months ago when they first brought me here - barely two weeks after my sixteenth birthday. Claire had been with them longer than me, but she was younger so I had to protect her. I swallowed down the fear I felt churning in my stomach. At that moment, I was almost grateful for my hunger because otherwise I would have had a much harder time keeping what little I had been fed down. I forced a smile on my face, “we’ll be fine,” I croaked, my voice barely above a whisper.

They brought us out to the vans - we still didn’t know where we’re going. It’s likely they’d been found out - some local rat got tired of their high rates and slipped to the cops. Tomorrow we’d probably be in some warehouse thousands of miles away, bringing us even more miles away from any thought of hope.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

In the morning, I awoke to the scent of pine, a calming tickle in my nostrils I hadn’t recognized in years. Suddenly, I remembered my dream from the other night. God I missed it. Home. The word tasted funny on my tongue - foreign. Get used to it, I thought. You’re gonna be here awhile.

Truth is that’s how we did it here…lived day to day. Only way to do it. Pretend each day that goes by isn’t like every other day - black, painful, empty, shameful. I stretched out, startled by the chain around my wrist wrenching me back toward the wall. Where are we? Normally keeping us in cells was enough.

Curiously, cautiously, I glanced around, taking in my surroundings. Oh. The room I was in was in… a house. The wallpaper gave it away - paisley and cheerful, a pink and green invite to sit down and stay awhile. A warm light shone down on the furniture around me - friendly and inviting - comfortable - like a good friend’s grandmother welcoming you with arms outstretched.

Reminded me of home. Again. Every time it hurt, the word pricking my skin, stinging my eyes. It wasn’t a warm word anymore - just cold and empty.

I was alone here…weird. I swallowed, thinking of Claire, the other girls. For the first time though, I had room to think. Those three unremitting words started to push their way into my thoughts, ‘should have known’, but I pushed them out, angry. Not my fault. Not Claire’s fault. Not Mary’s fault. It’s their fault - evil men who just see money, not faces, not souls.

Flashbacks to beatings, cold hands pressing me against the wall - seeing, but not seeing me. Strange men I’d never met before who thought they owned me, at least for an hour. I’m a toy. I don’t want to be a toy, I don’t want to be worthless.

A tear started to form at the corner of my eye. I pushed it away. How many of us? How many girls, how many human beings every year get plucked out of their lives and molded by cruelty and heartlessness into rag dolls - limp, hopeless, tired, bent, broken, dirty, used, torn, tired… later I would find out there are almost 30 million.

Tired! My mind screamed at me, memories ripping a hole in my heart. Tired. I decided to sleep.

— — — — — — —

I awoke with a start to the smell of burning. That textured, piney scent of wood up in flames, filtering into my nose and burning the top of my nostrils with the heat of disgrace and no-going-back.

Suddenly, shouts. Fast breath. Inklings of hope. A house collapsing. My heart collapsing.

Black.

A sliver of light.

“You’re safe now,” a whisper.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

I was one of the lucky ones. About fifteen hours after the move, the FBI had caught on a big lead – somehow, somewhere, I never much got the details. All I know is, round about 3 o’clock that afternoon they were already searching in the area when one of them caught glimpse of a fire way back in the woods. Turns out, our man on “guard duty” drank himself to sleep, his big lug of an arm knocking over the lamp beside him, smashing it to pieces on that old pine floor. Mere seconds later, the fire began to spread.

I don’t know if I believe in miracles. After three fucking years of that it’s kind of hard to. But that day… that day was a miracle. Soon as they saw those licks of flame coming out the forest that’s when they came. Coincidence? Maybe. But to Molly, and Carly, and Renata, and Kendra and all of us, coincidence didn’t mean a thing. The only word in our minds that day was freedom.

This story goes out to my twenty-some million brothers and sisters who are still enslaved around the world today. It never really does leave you. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever really be free.

A year after I graduated college and left behind teachers like Mrs. Peterson who never really would understand, I decided to dedicate my life to freeing other trafficking victims around the world. Now, ten years later, if I’ve realized one thing, it’s that with every human being I free, I myself become a little freer.

Flap those wings, little dove, and fly.